Speaking of gauges on your vehicle, I've had mine for over fourteen years and not too long ago I noticed the dashboard lights were quite dim. Doing so out of curiosity, I found turning that little knob on the left with the lightbulb symbol on it, which I never paid much attention to, brightens up those gauges and stuff.

And I'll be checking for the little tank-indicating arrow as well. I did not know that.

The one I learned previously on eHell that still amazes me I missed all my life is that there is an arrow near the gas gauge in cars indicating which side the gas tank is on. When I read it I immediately went and checked both our cars. At least 70% of the people I have shared that knowledge with never knew it either.

I just learned why the gas tank opening is on one side or another. To me, the drivers side is the "right" place to have it. It's made to be on the opposite side of where the exhaust runs to minimize the possibility of gas spilling down onto a hot exhaust pipe and starting a fire. I thought it was a "foreign car" thing. It further confused me as my Japanese car was actually made in Japan (gas on drivers' side) and DH's "German" car was made in Alabama (gas on "wrong" side).

I didn't just find this out - it was when I was about 13 - but I'm still kind of embarrassed. When I was a kid, my mother used to cut my fingernails for me with a pair of nail scissors. These scissors were like any other kind; i.e. they were for right-handed people only. That's why I needed her help - I could cut my left hand's nails, but not my right. One day, I said to my friend "I have no idea how I'm going to cut my nails when I'm grown up and in a place of my own. I'll probably have to call Mum over to help me!" She looked at me oddly and said "Um, just use nail clippers." "Huh? What are those?" "You're kidding, right?"

I wasn't. I'd never heard of them.

My nail scissors have straight circular metal handles. They can be used by persons of either-handed pursuasion. I've not seen them otherwise (thoguht larger scissor ofen are...)

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Well they couldn't exactly wait 35 years for a president to be born, grow up, and run for office.

"I learned at my last job, working for a law firm that handled asbestos litigation, that its mined from the ground! I figured something that harmful HAD to be man-made"

Mercury. QED. Anyway, you're not the only one who learned that in adulthood. Someone told me that and I didn't believe him at first, and even cracked a joke about nylon mining to go along with it. I had to look it up in a real encyclopedia because this was long before Wiki.

Virg

Uranium -

About 12 - 13 years ago there was a big deal about crayons imported from China. Crayons use talc - and talc and asbestos tend to form together. So some of the crayons had asbestos in them.

I learned the gas gauge thing from E-Hell, the last time a thread like this popped up. I told my dad, and he was so amazed with this knowledge that he immediately called his dad to share it. My grandpa's reaction was, "Uh, yeah, of course?" So apparently it's either totally obvious or a grand secret discovery!

DH and I had never used one before, we've had our current home for more than a year...we just wanted to know if the dish washer worked...

Didn't we all learn that the hard way? I know we did!

I didn't. I read it all over the internet. But do you want to know something crazy? I have been really, REALLY wanting to try it ever since I heard about it.

Me too though to be honest, I really need to mop the floor. And while I think it would be cool to see the suds come out, it would also light a fire under my butt in the floor mopping department as well

Logged

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

DH and I had never used one before, we've had our current home for more than a year...we just wanted to know if the dish washer worked...

Didn't we all learn that the hard way? I know we did!

I didn't. I read it all over the internet. But do you want to know something crazy? I have been really, REALLY wanting to try it ever since I heard about it.

Me too though to be honest, I really need to mop the floor. And while I think it would be cool to see the suds come out, it would also light a fire under my butt in the floor mopping department as well

Rest assured, it's a LOT of mopping. I knew it, but apparently college friends who were sharing the beach rental didn't.

Embarrassing fact I learned very recently: the verb "to ruminate" has two common meanings.

ru·mi·nate/ˈro͞oməˌnāt/Verb

Think deeply about something: "we sat ruminating on the nature of existence".

(of a ruminant) Chew the cud.

I learned this about 6 months ago when my husband asked me what I was doing, and I said I was ruminating. He said, "Oh, like a ruminant?" I thought he was pulling my leg, because he frequently does that, often by making up fake words that are derivatives of real ones, and because I had never even heard the term "ruminant" before.

But, as it turns out, he was teasing me with entirely factual information that time. I didn't believe him until I looked it up on Google. For the record, he was calling me a cow, not a contemplative person.

ru·mi·nant/ˈro͞omənənt/ Nounruminants, plural

An even-toed ungulate mammal that chews the cud regurgitated from its rumen. The ruminants comprise the cattle, sheep, antelopes, deer, giraffes, and their relatives

My husband's classic Camaro has a gas tank opening in the back. When I lived in Wyoming (hard g), we lived in a house with a fairly steep driveway and no garage door opener. I had just filled the car and went home, parking the car in the driveway because I was leaving again soon. The gas was coming out of the tank and running down the driveway.

I had heard the word epitome and knew what it meant/proper usage. But for some reason when I read it, the voice in my head pronounced it "ep-ee-tome" I was living in a world with both words for years

Logged

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

Americans will probably roll their eyes at this but I had no idea that the word "coloured" was racist. Of course, once I saw that I worked out that for someone to be coloured meant that some people were not coloured, rather than everyone's skin having a colour.

What can I say? I never used the word, but then I never had any reason to talk about someone's skin colour. People are people, you know? Our largest ethnic minority where I live is white and we're simply not very aware about race issues. I'm really glad I found out before I stuck my foot in it though.